He picks up my glass and sniffs it. “How much have you had to drink tonight?” he asks suspiciously.
I laugh. “One glass. And no, I’m not drunk.”
“Then you’re getting laid, because the band sucks, the crowds suck, and the tap beer is weaker than piss.”
I avoid the first part of his statement. “You have a lot of experience tasting pee?”
Mike snorts into his bottle. “Not as much as the bartenders have if this is what they drink every night.” He looks around the bar. “Why do you think it’s so dead?”
I have no idea. “I write lines of code for a living. The social decisions people make are beyond me.”
He turns slightly to look at the empty stage. “The natives are restless tonight. I don’t know. Maybe FMK can get them out of their seats.” He swivels back. “TA’s falling apart and I wanted to offer Davis a job. I had that wrong, didn’t I?”
Disarmed by his honesty, I can only blink in return. Mike doesn’t require a response.
He taps his fingers. “Thank fuck Adam agreed to do the collaboration.” The two bands are performing together at the end of FMK’s set. “Wonder if we should change up the set list. Maybe start with ‘Destiny’s Here.’ What do you think?”
Their hit single? Blowing out of the gate with the one song everyone wants to hear doesn’t seem to be the best idea. Then again, like I told him before: I write code, not music sets. “You guys should just go with your gut.”
He grimaces. “That’s the problem. My gut is fucked up.” Lines crease his perfect forehead. “Can I be straight with you, Landry?”
“Of course.”
“This tour is killing me. Hollister expects Keith to be on social media, schmoozing all the girls. Back home in Central City, we have this solid crowd and Keith doesn’t have to offer himself up like a piece of meat. Out on the road, he has to constantly be on—both in the club and every minute leading up to the show. He’s got to be sending winky faces and compliments. Tweeting out pics of his abs and shit.” Mike rubs a hand across his chest, as if trying to soothe a bad ache. “I hate all this fucking hiding.”
“Why can’t you come out?”
He gives me a disdainful look. “Because the front man brings in the girls. If they find out he’s gay, they can’t imagine themselves with him. It ruins their fantasy.”
“I dunno. I don’t think you give women enough credit.” Two attractive guys together? That’s hot.
Mike doesn’t agree. “Hollister would kill us. He told me that if I even hinted at Keith being in a relationship with me, that he’d drop us. He says we need to wait to get bigger and then we can go public.”
“That sucks,” I say, but I feel like a fraud.
Hiding is what I want to do. What I’m asking Adam to do. It’s not that I’m ashamed of hooking up with him, but I don’t want to make waves, and while my reasoning is not remotely the same as Hollister’s, the result is the same. I’m asking Adam to be dishonest.
Glumly we both fall silent, brooding over our beers.
“Fuck. Now I’ve depressed both of us,” Mike laments.
“Nah. I’m not depressed.” I’m more confused, feeling both horny and guilty at the same time.
“Let’s talk about something else. Word is that FMK might be the soundtrack to some commercial.”
“I, ah, I…” I look around, unsure of what I should say. Is this band-only business? I don’t want to leak something.
He clucks his tongue. “Honey, there’s nothing in this industry that stay
s secret long. They going to do it?”
“I don’t know.” That seems like a safe answer.
“Adam probably said no.”
“Why would you say that?” I ask, defensive on Adam’s behalf.
“Because he’s been asked before and always says no, that’s why.”